by Marie Force
“Are you prepared for him to be unhappy that you’ve done such a thing?”
Her stomach knotted at the thought of making Gavin unhappy. That was the last thing she wanted to do. “I hope he’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“You’re playing with emotional dynamite.”
“Maybe so, but you know what he told me last night?”
Hunter cringed. “Is it PG-13?”
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “He said it’s been years since he laughed or smiled as much as he has with me in the last few days. I want to give him more to smile about. That’s all this is.”
“And if you get a few days in the tropics with the guy you love . . .”
“Bonus.”
Hunter shook his head, his disapproval still obvious, but he clicked away on his computer and then looked up at her. “I sent you an e-mail with Dylan’s address.”
“Thank you.”
“Your heart’s in the right place with this, Ella. Don’t think I can’t see that. But just be prepared for it to not be as easy as you think it’s going to be.”
“Nothing with Gavin has been easy, except for the way I feel about him. Loving him is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“I know that feeling, but I also know Gavin, and he’s different since Caleb died.”
“Of course he is. We all are.”
“No one more so than Gavin. The grief runs deep. All the way to his bone marrow.”
“Grief isn’t the only emotion he’s capable of feeling. I’m determined to prove that to him.”
“Just make sure it’s not at your own expense.”
“I’m getting tired of everyone warning me off the man I love.”
“I know that feeling, too. Everyone thought I was crazy for getting involved with Megan, especially when she’d been so crazy about Will for so long. Didn’t matter. I get it. But none of us wants to see you sucked into the rabbit hole Gavin’s been in for years now. In fact, I can almost promise you that I’ll throw myself in front of that if I see it happening.”
“I don’t want you throwing yourself in front of anything, Hunter. I’m asking you and everyone to respect my judgment and my privacy. I know we’re up in each other’s business all the time, but I won’t welcome interference in this case.”
“Ella—”
“Gavin has a right to be happy, especially after everything he’s been through. I’m going to make him happy.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? You’re actually going to stand down?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is. Don’t worry about me. I’m a lot tougher than I look.”
“I will worry about you because that’s my job as your big brother.”
Ella rolled her eyes at him. “Focus your big-brother bullshit on Charley and leave me alone.”
“It’s easier to focus on you. You’re not as mean as she is.”
“Wimp.”
“Damn straight.”
Ella walked out laughing and encountered her dad returning from somewhere with Ringo and George in hot pursuit.
“Just the girl I wanted to see,” Lincoln said. “Step into my office.”
She didn’t bother to remind him that she was no longer a girl. Nor did she take the time to tell him she didn’t want to hear Gavin warnings from him, too. Resigned to losing control of her day, she followed her father into his office.
“Close the door, will you?”
Ella wanted to tell him there was no need to close the door because they weren’t going to talk about the thing he wanted to talk about. But arguing with him would take time she didn’t want to waste when she had a special meal to cook for the man she adored. She’d taken advantage of Gavin’s ungodly wake-up time to come into work more than an hour earlier than normal with plans to also leave early.
She took a seat in front of her dad’s desk. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to go over the remarks for Friday night. You’ve given me a great start, as always, but I need your opinion on a few things.”
“Oh,” Ella said, pleasantly surprised to realize they were going to discuss business rather than her love life. However, this was Lincoln Abbott, and his interest in his children’s love lives had been at an all-time high recently. So she remained wary.
They went over the remarks Ella had drafted for him, thanking the sales team for their dedication to the family and the store, gearing them up for the holiday rush and reminding them of several new product lines that were expected to get a lot of attention this year.
“I’d like to mention the toys,” Lincoln said.
“You’ve got that covered in the part about special gifts for the young people.”
“Not those toys.”
“Oh . . .” Ella did not want to sit in a room with her father and discuss sex toys. Uh-uh. No way. “It’s probably too soon. We’re not ready to roll that out yet.”
“We’re ready to tell them it’s coming in the New Year.”
“But that has nothing to do with the upcoming holiday season.”
“It’s a great time to start the conversation with everyone there. The next company meeting doesn’t happen until the picnic in July.”
“We can call another company-wide meeting before then, if need be.”
“That’s just more work. I want to tell them about it. Will you write me a paragraph or two about what we’re doing and why?”
“I still don’t know what we’re doing or why.”
“Yes, you do. You sat in Colton’s presentation and heard the numbers and why it makes sense to add the line to our store.”
“Fine. I’ll write something for you. Anything else?”
Eyeing her shrewdly, Lincoln sat back in his big leather chair and scratched Ringo behind the ears. “How are things?”
“Things are good. How are things with you?”
“Just fine.”
“Great. Glad we had this conversation.” She began to get up to leave.
“Ella.”
“Dad, please. I know exactly what you’re going to say and I’ve already heard it from Mom, Hunter, Hannah, Wade, Charley . . . It’s beginning to feel a bit like piling on. I know you all care, and I appreciate that. But if you really care, please just stay out of it.”
“All I was going to say is that I like Gavin. I like him for you.”
Ella was so flabbergasted that her mind went totally blank. She had not expected him to say that. “Oh. Well. Thanks. I like him for me, too.”
He smiled. “He’s a good guy.”
“Yes, he is. So . . . That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, um, I . . . I’ll get you that paragraph.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
Baffled and confused and more than a little relieved, Ella left her father’s office and returned to her own. For the next hour she labored over the paragraph her father wanted, trying to set the right tone so the sales force wouldn’t be alarmed by the new product line. She made sure to assure them that there would be lots of on-site training before the line went live and anyone who had concerns was welcome to bring them to the management at any time.
She sent it off to her dad via e-mail, hoping to avoid another sex toy conversation with her father. No one ever said there wasn’t a downside to working for the family business. She couldn’t wait to share this story with Gavin when she saw him later.
Ella thought of him while she ate the ham sandwich he’d made for her while she made his for him. She pictured him eating his sandwich and thinking of her. She’d made it with lots of mayo, just the way he wanted it, while he spread a thin layer of mustard on hers.
It was such a small silly thing, but she’d absolutely loved making lunches with him. Inside her brown bag, she saw a piece of paper and pulled it out. Hope you’re having a good day, he’d written. You’re standing right next to me, and I can’t wait to see you later.
Ella sighed
with pleasure at the sweet words and the sweeter sentiment. It felt so damned good to let loose all the feelings she’d kept contained for so long, to let the whole world know how she felt about him.
With her heart full to overflowing with love for him, she sent off an e-mail to Dylan, telling him what she wanted to do and asking if he’d be willing to help put her plan into action.
She moved on to other things, trying to forget about the message she’d sent to Dylan. Until her e-mail chimed with a new message and she immediately clicked right over to read it.
Hey Ella, Dylan had written, so nice to hear from you, and I love your idea of surprising Gavin with a trip to the wedding. It would mean so much to me to have him there. I can easily add you to the reservation at the resort. They’re holding a couple of extra rooms for us until the week before, so good timing. Am I holding one room for you guys or two?
He included some other details about the wedding and a link to the resort where it would take place.
Ella clicked on the link and began to drool at the sight of the crystal-clear blue water, white sand, palm trees, sunsets and breathtakingly romantic rooms. Imagining herself in paradise with Gavin was further impetus to make this happen.
She wrote back to Dylan. Thanks for all your help. The resort looks AMAZING! One room will do. Thanks again and congratulations!
He replied right away. Sounds like my buddy Gavin has been keeping secrets . . . Happy for you guys and especially happy for him. It’s high time he got back to the land of the living. See you soon, Ella.
Bolstered by Dylan’s kind reply, she logged on to a travel website to discover there were still plenty of seats available on flights. They’d leave from Boston the day after Thanksgiving—Black Friday, she thought with a gulp—and return the following Friday. Before she could purchase the tickets, she had to see about putting Charley in charge of the floor during one of the busiest weeks of the year in the store.
Ella checked the time on her computer. Just after three. She had an hour before she wanted to head home to start cooking and needed to make it count.
CHAPTER 14
Gavin’s workday had been a study in crisis management, beginning with the equipment failure in the mountains that had forced them to halt all operations for the day. He’d sent his mechanics to figure out what was going on, but in the meantime, the men who worked the north woods were at a standstill.
Standstills cost him money.
He’d no sooner dealt with that when two of the men working at a local job returned to the yard, one of them cradling his bloody hand while the other went in search of a first-aid kit. With one quick look, Gavin could see that the wound needed stitches.
“Get him to the ER,” Gavin said to the man who’d brought him back to the yard.
“What’s in the water today?” asked Clinton, his second in command, when the other two had left for the hospital.
“Who the fuck knows? And why would they come here instead of the hospital when he’s bleeding like a stuck pig?”
“Um, well, sometimes they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed?”
Most of the time, the guys who worked for him were reliable and bright. But sometimes they weren’t. “Did they say what happened?” Gavin asked, dreading the reams of paperwork that resulted from an on-the-job injury.
“Something about a strip of bark and a fall.” Clinton checked his watch. “I gotta jet. We have Trish’s ultrasound appointment at four. She’ll skin me alive if I’m late.”
“I remember. Go ahead, and good luck with that.”
“Thanks. Call me if you need anything.”
“Surely we’ve exceeded the day’s quota for catastrophes.”
“Knock on wood,” Clinton said with a smirk.
“Very funny.”
Clinton went spinning out of the parking lot a few minutes later, waving to Gavin as he left. He was happy for his longtime employee and his wife, who’d been trying to have a baby for a while now and were finally getting their wish.
He went into the office, hoping to hear from the mechanics with an update about the repairs being made to the equipment up north. While he waited, he paid some bills, caught up the accounting software and used the office line to return customer phone calls. His employees would know to call his cell phone.
His corner of Butler was one of two areas, Colton’s mountain being the other, that had reliable cell service. And he was damned thankful for that. It would be much more difficult to run his business without a cell phone.
It was starting to get dark by the time the cell rang with a call from one of his men—not the one he’d been hoping to hear from.
“Yeah, hey boss, so a funny thing happened on the way back to town.”
Gavin’s gut clenched. “What happened?”
“The truck jackknifed and we’ve got a load of wood blocking I-89.”
“Were people hurt?” Gavin asked, paralyzed by the image of massive logs rolling off one of his trucks onto cars sharing the road. It was one of his recurring nightmares as the owner of a logging company.
“No, man, I got super lucky. No one was near me at the time.”
Thank God for small favors.
“We got a real fucking mess up here. Can you come help me out?”
“Where are you?”
“Just south of St. Albans.”
Fuck, that was two hours away. “Yeah,” Gavin said with a sigh, “I’m on my way.” He should’ve actually knocked on wood earlier when Clinton suggested it. Before he left the office, he called the Green Mountain Country Store, asked for Ella and was put through to her voice mail. “Hi, this is Ella Abbott. I can’t take your call right now, but please leave a message, and I’ll get right back to you. Thanks.”
The sound of her voice made him smile for the first time since he parted with her that morning. “Hey, babe, it’s me. Total cluster of a day here, and I have to go rescue one of my guys over in St. Albans, so I’ll be late tonight. I’ll be over as soon as I get back to town. Call my cell if you need to reach me.” He rattled off the number. “I’ve been thinking about applesauce all day. Among other things. See you soon.”
Gavin pulled out of the yard a few minutes later and pressed the pedal to the floor. He had a four-hour round-trip and God only knew what kind of a mess waiting for him when he got there.
Ella arrived home right at four and flipped on some music to keep her company while she peeled a dozen apples, mixed them with apple juice, lemon juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves and her grandmother’s secret ingredient—maple syrup from the family’s sugaring facility on the mountain.
“Thank you, Colton,” Ella said, as she did every time she used the syrup her brother produced each year. He and Lucy had spent much of the autumn in New York but were back now for Thanksgiving and the birth of their first niece or nephew.
With the apples simmering in a pot on the stove, she prepared the pork tenderloin for baking and thought about the situation with Max and Chloe. She couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to break up with her partner when they were about to bring a baby into the world. Max had been forced to grow up practically overnight when Chloe got pregnant, and he’d held up admirably. But this new development had Ella worried about her baby brother.
Next she set her sights on the small white potatoes that she would fry with onions and garlic and oil. They were one of Ella’s favorite things to eat, and she couldn’t wait to share them with Gavin.
Another hour and a half or so and he would arrive. She couldn’t wait to see him. Eight hours apart felt like a lifetime, which she knew was ridiculous. But after waiting so long to be with him, every minute she spent apart from him was painful.
With all her prep work finished, Ella decided to indulge in a nice hot bath in the old claw-foot tub that was one of her favorite things about her apartment.
She spent more than an hour reading and lounging in the tub before getting out to dry off. In the cabinet she contemplated the array of sc
ented lotions that her sisters were always giving her for one occasion or another. Charley and Hannah both loved the smelly stuff, and tonight she was thankful for their good taste as well as Bath & Body Works.
Was she in a Warm Vanilla Sugar mood or Japanese Cherry Blossom? Perhaps in honor of their upcoming vacation, it was an Oahu Coconut Sunset kind of night. No, she’d save that for the trip. In the end, she chose Carried Away because the title matched her mood.
She was most definitely carried away by Gavin Guthrie, and she hoped he would carry her away again as soon as possible. With that in mind, she chose a slinky black nightgown with a matching thong and covered it with a red silk robe. The other thing her sisters loved beyond all reason was lingerie. She’d never cared enough about any man to wear for them the things they bought her. She was glad now that she’d saved them for Gavin. Her body tingled in anticipation.
After lighting her favorite sage candle, she went into the kitchen to check on dinner. The apples were soft and ready to be mashed. In her family there were two schools of thought when it came to applesauce. Some preferred the puréed version. Ella was a fan of the chunkier version. So rather than putting the apples in the food processor, she smashed them with a potato masher and put them in the refrigerator to cool.
The potatoes were nicely browned and smelled so good she nearly drooled in anticipation. A peek into the oven revealed that the meat was almost done, too. She turned the temperature down to keep it warm.
Ella poured a glass of chardonnay and took it into the living room. She lit the fire and sat on the sofa staring into the flames, wondering how much longer she had to wait until he’d arrive.
By seven, she was beginning to worry. She called his home number from memory—yes, she’d memorized it and wasn’t proud of that—but he didn’t answer, so she looked up the number to his office in the phone book. No answer there either.
Ella bit her thumbnail as a nagging worry began to assail her. What if one of the dark moods had come on him today and he was off doing something self-destructive? Was he in a bar somewhere? Was he spoiling for a fight? She poured another glass of wine and tried to force herself to relax, to not think the worst. But his recent track record made that a difficult challenge.
